
He made his recorded debut on "Phat Rabbit," a track from Timbaland's 1998 album Tim's Bio: Life from the Basement. His ninth studio album, Ludaversal, will be released sometime in 2012.īridges began his music career as a radio personality and DJ as Chris Lova Lova on Hot 97, an urban radio station in Atlanta, Georgia. He released his debut album Incognegro in 1999 and has since released a further seven albums. He is the highest selling Southern hip hop solo artist of all time with over 15 million units sold in the United States and around 20 million records sold worldwide. “I don’t have a date set,” he says, “but hopefully next year people will get some new music from me.Christopher Brian Bridges (born Septemin Champaign, Illinois), better known by his stage name Ludacris, is a Grammy award winning American rapper, SAG award winning actor and co-founder of the label Disturbing Tha Peace. it’s always been great, but it’s evolving very fast right now.”įans of Bridges’s music will be happy to hear that in addition to launching the restaurant, Bridges has been toiling away in the studio. “The Southern hospitality, the food, the women, the weather, the fact that it’s like the Motown of the south and there’s a lot of creative individuals that live here. “This is my home,” Bridges says of Atlanta. “I was happy that I had the restaurant for four to five years-those were some of the best years of my life-but I love just being a landlord.” Ludacris cuts the ribbon, marking the opening of Chicken+Beer, alongside Mayor Kasim Reed.Īs for Straits, his now-shuttered Singaporean restaurant in Midtown? That was always a real estate play, Bridges says.

It should be noted, though, that the idea to add whiskey to the syrup for Luda’s Chicken + Pecan Waffles was, in fact, all Luda. While he “dibbles and dabbles” in cooking at home, he left Chicken+Beer’s recipe development-the boiled peanut hummus, the stout-braised beef cheeks, the buttermilk chocolate cake-to chef Andrew Tabb. “I’m a Virgo, so sometimes I’m a little too hard on myself,” Bridges said, “but we were trying to perfect everything.” He was involved in everything from the “bright, warm” decor to the heavily taste-tested menu. He did, but the restaurant took about three years to open due to a mix of airport construction politics and his own perfectionism. I hoped we would win the bid.” Ludacris spoke at the restaurant’s opening on December 12. “When you’ve been in Atlanta and you have a name for yourself and you have a lot of integrity and you’re a good businessman. (The company, which is a partner in Chicken+Beer, also operates the airport’s One Flew South.) Also, “it was bidding time for the airport and, in my opinion, that’s the epitome of success, Bridges said. The location was chosen in part because of Bridges’s friendship with Daniel Halpern, CEO and co-founder of Jackmont Hospitality Inc. Chicken+Beer is located in Concourse D, Gate 5 of the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

But he still enjoys a beer every now and again, so it was important to him that Chicken+Beer’s drink menu feature local breweries such as Second Self, Terrapin, Sweetwater, and Creature Comforts. Acting roles-like the one in April’s Fast & Furious 8-mean that Bridges’s diet today consists of a lot more grilled than fried chicken.

“The reason I named my album that, a long time ago, is because my diet pretty much consisted of chicken and beer like every damn day,” Bridges said. Rapper Chris “Ludacris” Bridges poses outside Chicken+Beer with some hungry fans.Ītlanta-based rapper Chris “Ludacris” Bridges opened his new restaurant Chicken+Beer, named for his 2003 album, in Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport’s Concourse D, Gate 5 on Monday.
